Character Creation Has A Race Problem

[Skivvy]

You are the one that both brought up other games and their creators and how much freedom they have, as well as as compared FFXIV to them. I merely responded to that. Only now do you seem to try and reduce the scope of that comparison, but even then, just at the face value for the sake of negating what I said.

I specifically brought up GW2 as an example as they have a similar method to XIV. But yes, there are games that have far better character creators. I'm sorry I did not write an essay to explore my every last thought on the matter, but I assure you, I am not just trying to shift the point of my argument to win an online conversation.

But we can go back to my first comment in the thread:

Plenty of games manage just fine to add more ethnic looking faces into the mix. GW2, which is another game that relies heavily on "pre-set" faces, does a far better job with this. They've always had the standard Caucasian/Asian face options, and they've recently added a bunch of black/African faces and hairstyles which are quite nice.

XIV's creator is insanely limited, so I'm doubting they will ever add more ethnic looking options, but I can appreciate why people would like to have the option.

My second post:

I don't get why people seem to relish the the fact that customization is so limited in this game. I personally have been able to make characters I like, so I'm content enough, but many other games blow XIV out of the water with the characters you can create.

But yeah, I am always surprised by the amount of push-back that occurs from the players when people suggest expanding options. Boggles the mind.

Third:

It never hurts to keep an eye on your competition and maybe even get inspiration from them. Improving on a game is always possible, and there are many, MANY things that other games handle in a superior way.

Fourth:

I think a lot of the issue is that they can't otherwise the game will implode. At least that's how Yoshi makes it sound. Still, it never hurts to ask for more customization. If they do it, great. If not, we get to decide if we can continue playing with what we're given.

Not quoting my last two as one deals with pancake asses, and the other is only a few posts above.

But as you can discern from my comments, I'm a fan of the idea of more customization options. I've never asked for sliders. I only addressed sliders after you mentioned them. My first comment was discussing more faces/features, the remainder were more general "customization can always be better".

[Granyala]

Yes, but it's not as easy as one would think. Humanly possible variations include people that are 1,6m and 1,9m high. Make a body of a 1,9m high person with the legs of a 1,6m high person and you have a caricature while using sliders limited to humanly possible values.

Just take a ride in a RL bus. you see way worse "caricatures" than that.

[Skivvy]

I'm sorry, but though I'd appreciate more options here or there, I also disagree with this statement a lot.

Most of games that have far greater amount of customization do so by means of sliders, usually. As an end result...many caricatures are made. If I had to make a choice between a game with very few options and a game where caricatures can be made and everything else is equal, you can be 100% certain that I will pick the fewer options. I cannot make the "best looking character", but then again, I won't be surrounded by horrid abominations that some players find entertaining.
The major reason why I completely turn off names of characters in every MMO I play (if possible) is because players choose stuff that doesn't sound remotely name-like in any language possible. IamSupaMan, IOwnYou, EatMyDust and similar stuff is not names. But names I can turn off...characters themselves I cannot.

A character creator that both gives a lot of freedom and prevents making of caricatures would be like making a game in itself. The amount of work that'd have to come into it would be immense. So since that's not a possibility...a game with creator that have more limited options is actually better than a game that gives free reign. And this is also a reason that the developers of FFXIV don't see significant changes to the creator as high in priority list. They don't want these ridiculous designs either, something they DID actually state themselves, for the immersion breaking nature of that.

This particular thread was more focused on providing more ethnic looking options. New faces/facial features aren't going to hurt anyone, and more options in this manner would only be a plus (assuming the servers can survive). Going through this thread, you'll find several people who seem adamantly against adding new faces/features for reasons.

In regards to sliders, they can be tweaked to not allow extreme options. We already have a few sliders in this game and they're all tastefully done. As mentioned before GW2 utilizes the pre-set face options like XIV does, although they have sliders for eyes/noses/mouth/etc. You can make slightly questionable characters there if you try hard enough, but they are also far more toned down than other slider-games. That would be completely within the control of the developer.

But with all that said, I was just suggesting more faces/facial features. I don't see SE doing a complete overhaul of their character creator.